All eyes on Reid

As health reform shifts back to the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid is facing dissent from fellow Democrats worried that he has no final bill, no Democratic consensus on the way ahead and no guarantee he’ll finish by year’s end.

Even before Saturday’s House vote, senators had begun to question why Reid suddenly shifted course two weeks ago and threw his weight behind a public option plan, laying bare the deep divisions in his caucus between liberals and moderates.

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In the process, Senate action on health care has stopped dead, raising the possibility the Senate won’t even begin floor debate until after Thanksgiving. Reid said he’s confident the Senate will pass health reform legislation but left open the chance the final bill could slip until early next year.

That remark earned him a visit from White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who showed up in the majority leader’s office the next day to press him on the urgency of a Christmas deadline, according to two Senate aides.

But it’s not just timing. Senate moderates are clearly growing nervous about the process ahead — the difficulties of merging a still nonexistent Senate bill with the more liberal House bill, one that has received the blessing of President Barack Obama and the momentum from Saturday night’s historic vote.

In a private meeting last week with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a half-dozen moderate Democrats aired a long list of concerns about the differences between the two approaches. They cited the $1.2 trillion price tag of the House bill, its reliance on a “millionaire’s tax” to fund the overhaul and the House’s refusal to include a tax on so-called Cadillac health plans because the tax is opposed by Democrats’ allies in organized labor.

The expectation has long been that the Senate’s approach would hold sway in a final bill, substituting a price tag closer to $900 billion and eliminating the millionaire’s tax that’s a nonstarter in the Senate. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi met one of her goals with the House bill passed Saturday, by bringing a more liberal version of the legislation into the conference in hopes of strengthening her hand in the negotiations. That could put additional pressure on the Senate to bend.

Reid already knew the clock was ticking on his reform efforts, but the House action Saturday elevated the stakes, in terms of both timing and policy. Obama issued a none-too-subtle reminder Sunday, saying, “Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people. And I’m absolutely confident that they will.”

“Passage by the House turns the spotlight fully on the Senate to enact a bill early in December that will cover as many people, deliver coverage that is as affordable, includes a national public option and is progressively financed,” said Richard Kirsch, campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, an umbrella group of liberal organizations pushing the public option.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said one advantage for the Senate is that the House vote gives a preview of potential sticking points, such as a last-minute flare-up over abortion that forced Pelosi into a compromise. But Manley also said, “Clearly it is going to give us momentum. But it does not signify any break in the logjam. It was always going to be to close in the Senate, and nothing has changed.”

Among Senate moderates, the second-guessing began weeks ago. Baucus hosted a gathering Oct. 22 at which he informed centrist senators about Reid’s decision to go with a public option that includes a chance for states to “opt out” of the national plan.